Maybe Baraq can begin showing up for his briefings on a consistent basis too , , ,

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Why Mitt Will WinBy DICK MORRISPublished on TheHill.com on September 11, 2012

Printer-Friendly VersionNow that both conventions are over, the dimensions of the likely Romney triumph are becoming clear. Both through an analysis of the polling and an examination of the rhetoric, the parameters of the victory are emerging.

Start with the polling. It appears that the bulk of the Obama post-convention bounce has been in blue states where his left-oriented convention stirred up the enthusiasm of an already committed group of voters. Among likely voters identified in the Washington Post poll -- taken after the conventions -- Obama holds a slim, 1-point edge. And an analysis of Rasmussen's state-by-state likely-voter data indicates a tie in the battleground states (according to Breitbart).

But it's not really a tie at all. All pollsters are using 2008 models of voter turnout. Some are combining '04 and '08 but skewing their samples to '08 numbers. African-Americans cast 11 percent of the national vote in '04, but their participation swelled to 13 percent in '08. These 2 million new black voters backed Obama overwhelmingly. Will they come out in such numbers again? Will college and under-30 voters do so as well? Will Latino turnout be at historic highs? All these questions have to be answered in the affirmative for the polling samples so widely published to be accurate.

For example, when a poll shows an Obama lead among likely voters of, say, 47 percent to 45, it is based on an assumption that blacks will cast 13 percent of the vote. But the lack of enthusiasm among Obama's base for his candidacy and their doubts about the economy make an 11 percent black turnout more likely. In this event, Romney would actually win 46 percent to 45.

And then there is the enthusiasm gap. All recent polling suggests that Republican and GOP-leaning independents are 13 points more enthusiastic and following the race more closely than their Democratic counterparts. If the grass roots do their job, this will yield a stronger Romney vote.

Finally, when every poll among every sample has Obama below 50 percent of the vote, it is most likely that the undecideds have, in fact, decided not to back his reelection.

But to crawl out of the statistical weeds, let's examine the state of the partisan dialogue. Former President Clinton made a huge blunder when he accepted the Republican challenge and flatly -- and loudly -- asserted that we are, in fact, better off than we were four years ago. Polls show that only about 33 percent of voters agree while close to half do not see the world that way.

Finally, both parties seemed happy to embrace the same formulation of the difference between them. Both agreed that the Republican Party is based on a philosophy of individual responsibility. Obama articulated it as "you're on your own." Republicans put it differently: "We'll get government off your back." Democrats said theirs was a party that would lend you a hand.

Gallup measured these two options and voters chose "leave me alone" over "lend me a hand" by 54 percent to 35.

Over the long haul, these are the questions that will dominate voting intentions. The function of the conventions is to formulate and articulate each party's view of the world. The fact that they were so similar and that each was willing to trust its fate to the question of "Are you better off?" means that the Romney message will have a very strong advantage. The decision by the Democrats to embrace this choice and not to move to the center will make it impossible for them either to reelect their president or to command a majority in the new Senate.

This should add to our security by forcing the President to receive intelligence briefings too - for political purposes.

The President's team is saying he reads them instead of having then presented in person more often than not and that he is perhaps the smartest person to have ever read them.

Clods like Reagan and George W bush were slower; sometimes when told a summary of all the complexities of all the greatest threats in the world against the United States they even had to ask ... a FOLLOWUP QUESTION.

I've been saying this since the man was elected. He is not interested in American exceptionalism or American military superiority in the world. The man has been a great success in enacting his agenda - which is clear from his actions, but never stated. He has contempt for America - that is the fact of the matter. Most people don't want to believe that - but then - most Germans didn't want to believe that Hitler was as evil as he turned out to be either.

I urge everyone to see Dinesh D'Souza's film 2016 - NOW. It explains everything about what motivates Obama. I can assure you it isn't love of this country.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Brietbart reporting chaos at State Dept. Hillary ordered no bullets, no marines at Benghazi.

Who is her boss and how much time does he spend overseeing her work?

I reported earlier Amb Huntsman never met with the Pres in person or otherwise regarding China policy. Add to that Crafty's point about the Afghan commander and the cluelessness on jobs and growth, this man does not want the job; he wants the perks.

Also the Pres. does not understand the nature of the enemy. He believed his own rhetoric. They hated the Texas swagger of George Bush and cannot resist his apologies and charm , but in fact they hate us because we exist and understanding that is crucial to our security.

I agree that the Hitler reference was a bad idea, for a number of reasons. It's rarely a good idea in any circumstance, since he's the lazy man's poster boy for evil. My point stands nonetheless - I believe we are living in a period which is in many ways analogous to 1938 - except that 74 years later, the world's leaders ought to know better.

It's illustrative of just how ignorant of history the masses are, and in many cases - our leaders are equally as ignorant, or unwilling to see and take proper action. Netanyahu is a notable exception.

Where are the rest? I don't believe Romney fully grasps the imminent danger, either. He seems a bit detached, and has never really understood the malignant cancer that is Islam.

Obama is a Marxist at heart. My suspicion is that he is not a religious man at all - he views Islam simply as a means to an end - a useful tool right now for bringing about the decline of America as a superpower - which he feels is long overdue. Most Americans are unwilling to believe this is possible - that we've elected a man who despises this nation as founded - who believes it is illegitimate and inherently corrupt - and who wants to destroy and remake it in his utopian image. That is the truth - we deny it at our peril.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

So, on a highly symbolic date, mobs storm American diplomatic facilities and drag the corpse of a U.S. ambassador through the streets. Then the president flies to Vegas for a fundraiser. No, no, a novelist would say; that’s too pat, too neat in its symbolic contrast. Make it Cleveland, or Des Moines.

The president is surrounded by delirious fanbois and fangurls screaming “We love you,” too drunk on his celebrity to understand this is the first photo-op in the aftermath of a national humiliation. No, no, a filmmaker would say; too crass, too blunt. Make them sober, middle-aged midwesterners, shocked at first, but then quiet and respectful.The president is too lazy and cocksure to have learned any prepared remarks or mastered the appropriate tone, notwithstanding that a government that spends more money than any government in the history of the planet has ever spent can surely provide him with both a speechwriting team and a quiet corner on his private wide-bodied jet to consider what might be fitting for the occasion. So instead he sloughs off the words, bloodless and unfelt: “And obviously our hearts are broken . . . ” Yeah, it’s totally obvious.

And he’s even more drunk on his celebrity than the fanbois, so in his slapdashery he winds up comparing the sacrifice of a diplomat lynched by a pack of savages with the enthusiasm of his own campaign bobbysoxers. No, no, says the Broadway director; that’s too crude, too ham-fisted. How about the crowd is cheering and distracted, but he’s the president, he understands the gravity of the hour, and he’s the greatest orator of his generation, so he’s thought about what he’s going to say, and it takes a few moments but his words are so moving that they still the cheers of the fanbois, and at the end there’s complete silence and a few muffled sobs, and even in party-town they understand the sacrifice and loss of their compatriots on the other side of the world.

But no, that would be an utterly fantastical America. In the real America, the president is too busy to attend the security briefing on the morning after a national debacle, but he does have time to do Letterman and appear on a hip-hop radio show hosted by “The Pimp with a Limp.” In the real State Department, the U.S. embassy in Cairo is guarded by Marines with no ammunition, but they do enjoy the soft-power muscle of a Foreign Service officer, one Lloyd Schwartz, tweeting frenziedly into cyberspace (including a whole chain directed at my own Twitter handle, for some reason) about how America deplores insensitive people who are so insensitively insensitive that they don’t respectfully respect all religions equally respectfully and sensitively, even as the raging mob is pouring through the gates.

When it comes to a flailing, blundering superpower, I am generally wary of ascribing to malevolence what is more often sheer stupidity and incompetence. For example, we’re told that, because the consulate in Benghazi was designated as an “interim facility,” it did not warrant the level of security and protection that, say, an embassy in Scandinavia would have. This seems all too plausible — that security decisions are made not by individual human judgment but according to whichever rule-book sub-clause at the Federal Agency of Bureaucratic Facilities Regulation it happens to fall under. However, the very next day the embassy in Yemen, which is a permanent facility, was also overrun, as was the embassy in Tunisia the day after. Look, these are tough crowds, as the president might say at Caesar’s Palace. But we spend more money on these joints than anybody else, and they’re as easy to overrun as the Belgian consulate.

As I say, I’m inclined to be generous, and put some of this down to the natural torpor and ineptitude of government. But Hillary Clinton and General Martin Dempsey are guilty of something worse, in the secretary of state’s weirdly obsessive remarks about an obscure film supposedly disrespectful of Mohammed and the chairman of the joint chiefs’ telephone call to a private citizen asking him if he could please ease up on the old Islamophobia.

Forget the free-speech arguments. In this case, as Secretary Clinton and General Dempsey well know, the film has even less to do with anything than did the Danish cartoons or the schoolteacher’s teddy bear or any of the other innumerable grievances of Islam. The 400-strong assault force in Benghazi showed up with RPGs and mortars: That’s not a spontaneous movie protest; that’s an act of war, and better planned and executed than the dying superpower’s response to it. Secretary Clinton and General Dempsey are, to put it mildly, misleading the American people when they suggest otherwise.

One can understand why they might do this, given the fiasco in Libya. The men who organized this attack knew the ambassador would be at the consulate in Benghazi rather than at the embassy in Tripoli. How did that happen? They knew when he had been moved from the consulate to a “safe house,” and switched their attentions accordingly.

How did that happen? The United States government lost track of its ambassador for ten hours. How did that happen? Perhaps, when they’ve investigated Mitt Romney’s press release for another three or four weeks, the court eunuchs of the American media might like to look into some of these fascinating questions, instead of leaving the only interesting reporting on an American story to the foreign press.

For whatever reason, Secretary Clinton chose to double down on misleading the American people. “Libyans carried Chris’s body to the hospital,” said Mrs. Clinton. That’s one way of putting it. The photographs at the Arab TV network al-Mayadeen show Chris Stevens’s body being dragged through the streets, while the locals take souvenir photographs on their cell phones. A man in a red striped shirt photographs the dead-eyed ambassador from above; another immediately behind his head moves the splayed arm and holds his cell-phone camera an inch from the ambassador’s nose. Some years ago, I had occasion to assist in moving the body of a dead man: We did not stop to take photographs en route. Even allowing for cultural differences, this looks less like “carrying Chris’s body to the hospital” and more like barbarians gleefully feasting on the spoils of savagery.

In a rare appearance on a non-showbiz outlet, President Obama, winging it on Telemundo, told his host that Egypt was neither an ally nor an enemy. I can understand why it can be difficult to figure out, but here’s an easy way to tell: Bernard Lewis, the great scholar of Islam, said some years ago that America risked being seen as harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend. At the Benghazi consulate, the looters stole “sensitive” papers revealing the names of Libyans who’ve cooperated with the United States.

Oh, well. As the president would say, obviously our hearts are with you.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, the local doctor who fingered bin Laden to the Americans sits in jail. In other words, while America’s clod vice president staggers around pimping limply that only Obama had the guts to take the toughest decision anyone’s ever had to take, the poor schlub who actually did have the guts, who actually took the tough decision in a part of the world where taking tough decisions can get you killed, languishes in a cell because Washington would not lift a finger to help him.

Like I said, no novelist would contrast Chris Stevens on the streets of Benghazi and Barack Obama on stage in Vegas. Too crude, too telling, too devastating.

As I have repeatedly stated: This President and his administration loathe the idea of American exceptionalism. These disastrous results are the predictable outcome of policies designed to weaken our defenses. This is not - I repeat - this is NOT an accident. As Steyn strongly implies, this administration is deliberately weakening this nation - domestically and around the world with regard to our foreign policy. This is by design. When will those Americans in denial about this - including many conservatives - give up their pollyanna-ish fantasy that this president, like any other - wants what is best for the United States as founded, and for her people? We have an enemy-in-chief.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Romney's Tax Plan Fails to Gain a Foothold Conservatives Worry GOP Nominee is Losing Messaging Battle to Obama on an Issue They Say Should Favor Republicans.By JOHN D. MCKINNON

Mitt Romney, who has proposed new cuts to individual and corporate taxes, has lost his recent lead over President Barack Obama on the question of which presidential candidate would best handle taxation, a reversal that turns up in several polls and presents a worrisome trend for the GOP nominee.

Republicans who favor tax cuts as a way to boost the economy, and who believe the issue should be a political winner for the GOP, are wondering why Mr. Romney hasn't gained traction with his tax-cut plan. Some say he simply isn't promoting it well or arguing forcefully that it would bring economic benefits.

Other Republicans say Mr. Obama is winning the message war by focusing on a simple idea with wide appeal—ending tax breaks for wealthier taxpayers—while Mr. Romney pushes a broader cut to marginal rates for all income brackets. That plan would be coupled with an overhaul of the tax code to narrow breaks and loopholes to offset the proposed cuts, although Mr. Romney hasn't offered many specifics.

At least four polls in recent weeks have found Mr. Obama holding an edge over Mr. Romney on who would best handle the issue of taxes. An ABC/Washington Post poll last week found Mr. Obama with a seven-point advantage on taxes among registered voters, after Mr. Romney had led in that survey in August. A Gallup poll in late August found Mr. Obama holding a nine-point lead on the issue of taxes, after Mr. Romney led in July.

Some conservatives suggest the Romney campaign hasn't done enough to convince voters that his plan would boost economic growth.

"I think there's an educational effort that needs to be made with the public," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former economic adviser to GOP Sen. John McCain's 2008 campaign. "I don't think sufficient effort has been made on that front" by the Romney campaign.

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a group that pushes for lower taxes, said the Romney campaign "would be better off focusing more on taxes. It's a clear winner." Mr. Norquist said taxes and federal spending issues brought many voters to the polls for the big GOP wave of 2010 and could help the party again. "I find it hard to believe you can overplay them," he said.

Others suggest the Obama team's call for the Bush-era tax cuts to expire for couples on income exceeding $250,000 a year is proving politically potent.

As recently as this past weekend, Mr. Obama's campaign unveiled a TV spot that says the president wants "millionaires to pay a little more to help invest in a strong middle class, clean energy and cut the deficit."

The ad also repeats Mr. Obama's assertion that Mr. Romney would reduce tax rates so much for the wealthy that middle-class tax bills would have to rise, a claim Mr. Romney says is untrue.

When tax cuts are linked to the loss of benefits or services, "the idea of reducing taxes…loses a lot of its political appeal," said Michael Graetz, a top Treasury tax official in the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

In addition, he said, "I think people are more aware that those at the top are doing well while people in the middle are running as hard as they can to stay in place. That makes the idea of tax cuts for everyone less appealing than they were, for example in 2000, when George W. Bush made them a centerpiece."

A Romney campaign spokeswoman, Amanda Henneberg, said Mr. Romney's plan would "fundamentally reform the tax system by lowering marginal tax rates across-the-board to jumpstart our economy." In contrast, she said, Mr. Obama's plan includes "massive tax increases that would hurt millions of businesses." She also said Mr. Romney would continue to trumpet his tax plan.

Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said Mr. Romney was "out of step on taxes." He said the president already has cut taxes for middle-income families and that Mr. Romney would raise taxes on such families to pay for tax cuts for wealthier taxpayers.

Wall Street Journal polling this summer found support for raising taxes on the highest-income households, as Mr. Obama proposes. While a plurality of voters—37%—said in a July survey that the Bush tax cuts were good for the economy rather than bad, 50% of those polled said the Bush tax cuts should end for households earning more than $250,000 a year.

In its original form, Mr. Romney's tax plan called for extending Bush-era tax cuts and eliminating tax on investments for people earning less than $200,000. But when faced with GOP primary challengers, Mr. Romney expanded his plan, calling for eventually reducing marginal tax rates by an additional 20% and making other changes.

The economy is in the tank, world affairs are in disarray, and we're going broke. You would think it would be easy to beat Obama.

But along come Romney. Obama's savior. I mean even if what Romney says is true (others here have said the same) is this smart politics?

The man is shooting himself; Obama just needs to stay out of the way.

"“There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care of them, who believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it,” Romney said in a videotaped speech to donors that was given to the news organization Mother Jones, which posted it online Monday.

“That's an entitlement," Romney said. "And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. … These are people who pay no income tax.”

In the remarks, Romney said he had no hope of swaying those people to his side and would instead focus on unaligned voters.

"[M]y job is not to worry about those people,” Romney said, referring to Obama supporters. “I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

The Obama campaign immediately lashed out at Romney, saying that he had effectively written off half the population.

“It's shocking that a candidate for president of the United States would go behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that half the American people view themselves as ‘victims,’ entitled to handouts, and are unwilling to take ‘personal responsibility’ for their lives,” said Obama campaign manager Jim Messina. “It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully written off half the nation.”

Or another story; Romney's meltdown. Sorry, he was the wrong choice if you want to beat Obama.

"For students of journalistic feeding frenzies in presidential politics, the Romney campaign-meltdown story merits close study.The first striking feature is that the flashpoint story that pulled together his missteps -- the bungled foreign trip, his lackluster convention, his widely denounced response to the Libya carnage, to name a few -- appeared in the new media. It was on the Politico website Sunday under the headline "Inside the Campaign: How Mitt Stumbled," rather than in mainstream newspapers or on the networks' evening news shows, the traditional pacesetters in campaign coverage."

"First there was a series of early warning signs. Since the GOP convention, Romney has been getting blasted by his ought-to-be fellow travelers, notably the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal, and freelance radio right-wingers. Where others have bludgeoned the Republican nominee, Fox News has nibbled, as if to indicate that telling the real, whole news would let too much water through the Titanic-like hole in the U.S.S. Romney."

Famous people reading the forum, I thought Romney was just commenting on a CCP post made here.

No one could survive a remark like bitter clingers, 47% are dependent on government or that "I will have more flexibility after my election" to negotiate against the best interest of Americans? An interesting question would be, what would the vote result have been in 2008 if candidate Obama had not gotten caught ripping the bitter clingers? About the same.

The candidate better than Romney was ... Huntsman? With 1/10th of the support, a tax plan to the right of Romney and a little less charisma than Pawlenty? The Republicans had an open contest and Romney won. Dems suppressed theirs. No one is asking who should have been the Dem candidate to change the course of this American-led, global decline.

The Romney remark is imprecise, but the problem is real. It is not the exact same group that are both dependent and are the hard core Dem vote. Obama also wins with liberal elites, trust fund babies, the college professor crowd, the rich mainstream media, and also the anti-government felon vote. And quite a few of those receiving a check or not paying in are Republicans who understand the balance of keeping opportunity alive while taking care of those in real need.

Romney is the only person in the world right now capable of replacing Obama as President and preventing a second Obama, decline by design, Presidential term. Rip him at your own peril.

It will be a shame if Repubs lose the election because they do not have a mouthpiece who can spin like Clinton.

Then again they are up against the MSM, they are against a party that uses tax money to bribe as much electorate as they can.

Ari Fleischer was defending Romney and clearly pointing out the obvious. That 47 % paying no income taxes is a huge problem. Yet Andersan Cooper could not see to focus on this very valid and accurate point. Instead it was all about seniors who make up some of this group, it is about payroll tax (which we all know does not go into a lockbox account to pay for what it is supposed to but gets spent for other programs), and the "victimhood" remark.

As though the 47% are not happy to keep sticking it to the rich and taking their checks. They are all so insulted. Just more political correctness.

So will Obama be Carter or Romney Dole? It seems they are both.

What Romney said is exactly true. The country has become dependent, expecting the government to take care of them.

Case - proof in point - single mothers. They are overwhelmingly for the Democrats.

The country clearly is on the wrong track. But people don't care about ideology. They care about their bills.

COSTA MESA, Calif. — Mitt Romney, speaking to reporters Monday evening at a hastily called news conference meant to blunt the impact of a newly released video, said that he chose his critical words about Obama’s supporters poorly but did not back down from their substance.

“It’s not elegantly stated, let me put it that way. I’m speaking off the cuff in response to a question and I’m sure I can state it more clearly and in a more effective way than I did in a setting like that,” he said, before calling on the source of the video to release the full recording."

HOW you say it IS important; not just what you say. That is an important reason why Reagan was so successful.

Here's Obama....

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- It’s never easy for a candidate to distill wonky debates about tax policy into terms voters can easily understand. Of late, the Obama campaign has borrowed heavily from the master, using former President Clinton's line about “arithmetic” to make the case that the Romney-Ryan plan doesn’t add up.

But Monday in Columbus, President Obama took a stab at explaining it in terms Ohio State University football fans would understand.

“Imagine the sellout crowd for a Buckeyes' football game at the Horseshoe,” he began, referring to a stadium with a seating capacity in excess of 100,000.

"Under my opponent's tax plan, 106 fans at the game would get an average tax cut of $250,000, and about 100,000 fans would have to pay for it," he said. “And by the way, the ones who would get the tax break are the guys in the box seats.

The sports analogy came after a weekend in which aides say the president watched quite a bit of football, in addition to receiving briefings on the situation in the Middle East, phoning heads of missions at diplomatic posts in affected nations, and potentially some debate prep.

The president told a crowd of 4,500 at a local park that it was tax breaks targeted to the middle class that were most likely to spur the economy.

“When I cut taxes on middle-class families, why did I do that? Because when you guys have a little more money in your pocket, what happens?” he asked. Spend it, was the crowd’s response.

On the other hand, “if you give a tax break to a billionaire, you can only buy so many yachts,” he said.

Inelegant, yes. It also gives an indication to his backers that he gets the political challenge we face. What is missing in the 'gotcha' film is how he would cut those SOB's money off as soon as he gets in. In fact, the baseline for a zero increase in spending is a ten trillion increase in spending, and the Ryan budget for one goes above that.

Whether you want a job, a good economy to open a new business in, or the security of knowing a legitimate safety net entitlement check will be funded into the future, you should be choosing the candidate with the best plan to grow the economy.------------------

Yesterday in my studies of the dependency crowd I took the opportunity to visit a liquor store in one of the seediest areas of our inner city. In the center front of the store sidewalk was the Obama - register the vote table with one paid worker ready to help. I must say from my short period of observation coming and going that this is not 2008. People came and went with their liquor purchases but no one showed any interest in the table or even offered a sign of approval. Sure, if polled, the demographic is Dem or left of Dem. There is a strong racial pride (in all of us) that America in 2008 elected Barack Obama as President. But there is zero enthusiasm or optimism left from 2008 that 4 more years of Obama will make a personal and positive difference in their lives.

For one thing, poor people already had free government health care. Obama chose a middle class entitlement for his signature achievement; money that could have gone to the poor. The poor gained nothing, the middle class was the group that lost the most in terms of income, wealth, opportunity and jobs in the 6 years since Dems took over Washington in Nov. 2006, and the rich are openly targeted. Who is left to get excited about a second term?

JDN, I am surprised you quote Obama still showing no grasp of economics and offering no plan for solving any of our problems. He is still willing to lie and deceive in the hope of getting 4 more years of aircraft privileges.

"Under my opponent's tax plan, 106 fans at the game would get an average tax cut of $250,000, and about 100,000 fans would have to pay for it," he said.

- There is no Republican proposal to raise taxes on the middle class tax.

"the ones who would get the tax break are the guys in the box seats."

- The Romney plan will take away deductions for the upper income earners. Don't let facts get in the way of a great opportunity to build and exploit class hatred for his own personal power gain.

Romney's tax plan? It's a give to to rich and take from the middle class plan. So he and his friends can all own their own private aircraft AND deduct it from their taxes.

"Mitt Romney has proposed huge tax cuts that principally benefit the wealthy, while refusing to say how he would pay for them by closing unspecified loopholes (emphasis added). This lacks credibility and may become one of the rare tax-cut promises that is a political loser."

JDN., Links to falsehoods published in the media ought to go in media issues, no?

Do you have a link to Romney proposing to raise tax rates on the middle class? Oh, you don't. Just political opponents including our biased media lying to suggest what isn't so is so.

On the other side of your ignorance, JFK, Reagan, Clinton/Gingrich and George W Bush all increased revenues by cutting the marginal tax rates. The most recent example was a 44% surge over 4 years ending with the election of the Pelosi-Reid-Obama congress. This inconvenient truth has been posted many times on many threads. You ignore the content but confronted again with these facts do you still deny the truth?

Barack Obama, NY Times and JDN, all pyromaniacs in a field of straw men. Apologies to Geo. Will.

As many mainstream media personalities erupt in a hissy fit over what Romney said MONTHS AGO at a fundraiser (Mother Jones strategically released it now precisely to create such a frenzy), let's get some sane, factual analysis, shall we?

Romney has got to stop being such a vagina to those pricks at the Pravdas.

He started a fight over the kitty attitude of Baraq et al, and now he runs from it because the media is having a snit.

ESCALATE!!!

This forum has been full of juicy facts and zingers he could be using.

BTW, I'm calling an "I called it" with regards to the Rep void on foreign affairs and with regard to Romney having a tin ear. Vague bromides that echo of Bush are not a winner. We are being run out of the mid-east and the man, who did not address Afpakia at the convention, has nothing to say and instead does the gotcha dance with the media. Oy vey!

IMHO this is why he fears to come to blows over this issue-- he has not the conceptual overview to speak of a uni-polar moment that has passed and what is to come, just like he has failed to articulate the why of the eco mess we are in: the housing bubble and how it was caused.

That IS his problem,"and now he runs from it because the media is having a snit"

He runs a DIFFERENT direction every month because some interest group, be it right or left is having a snit. What does he stand for? Does HE even know anymore? He's not a "bad person", but not being a "bad person" doesn't make you presidential material. "Vague bromides" are not an answer.

Obama may/will win this whole thing, not because of his record or competency, but because of Romney's perceived incompetence.

Noonan: Romney Needs a New CEO How to save a listing campaign, the Baker WayBy PEGGY NOONAN

"Nothing is written." That was T.E. Lawrence to the Arab tribesmen in Robert Bolt's screenplay, a masterpiece, of "Lawrence of Arabia." You write no one off. Nothing is inevitable. Life is news—"What happened today?" And news is surprise—"You're kidding!"

But you have to look at the landscape and see the shape of the land. You have to see it clearly to move on it well.

So here's one tough, cool-eyed report on what is happening in the presidential race. It's from veteran Republican pollster, now corporate strategist, Steve Lombardo of Edelman public relations in Washington. Mr. Lombardo worked in the 2008 Romney campaign. He's not affiliated with any candidate. This is what he wrote Thursday morning, and what he sees is pretty much what I see.

"The pendulum has swung toward Obama." Mitt Romney has "a damaged political persona." He is running behind in key states like Ohio and Virginia and, to a lesser extent, Florida. The president is reversing the decline that began with his "You didn't build that" comment. For three weeks he's been on a roll. The wind's at his back.

How did we get here? What can turn it around?

1. Mr. Romney came out of the primaries "a damaged and flawed candidate." Voters began to see him as elitist, rich, out of touch. "Here the Democrats' early advertising was crucial." Newt Gingrich hurt too, with his attacks on Bain.

2. The Democrats defined Mr. Romney "before he had a chance to define himself." His campaign failed in "not doing a substantial positive media buy to explain who Mitt Romney is and what kind of president he might be."

3. "Perceptions of the economy are improving." Unemployment is high, but the stock market has improved, bringing 401(k)s with it.

4. Obama's approval ratings are up five to six points since last year. He is now at roughly 49% approval, comparable to where President Bush was in 2004.

5. "The president had a strong convention and Romney a weak one." The RNC failed "to relaunch a rebranded Romney and create momentum."

6. Team Romney has been "reactive," partly because of the need for damage control, but it also failed to force the Obama campaign to react to its proposals and initiatives.

7. The "47%" comment didn't help, but Mr. Romney's Libya statement was a critical moment. Team Romney did not know "the most basic political tenet of a foreign crisis: when there is an international incident in which America is attacked, voters in this country will (at least in the short term) rally around the flag and the President. Always. It is stunning that Team Romney failed to recognize this."

But, says Mr. Lombardo, nothing is over, much remains fluid. The president and his campaign know it. "Among likely voters nationally only two-three points separate the two candidates." The debates are critical. "If Romney clearly wins the first debate" Oct. 3, "he has a good chance of reversing the trajectory of the last three weeks."

Why? "Because support for Obama remains lukewarm." That's why "he is not running away with this thing even after Romney's myriad stumbles."

Finally, "the economy is still weak and the jobs report on October 5th will be pivotal. A strong one may ensure an Obama victory. On the other hand, a poor one on the heels of a Romney debate win could re-align this race."

***It is true that a good debate, especially a good first one, can invigorate a candidate and lead to increased confidence, which can prompt good decisions and sensible statements. There is more than a month between the first debate and the voting: That's enough time for a healthy spiral to begin.

But: The Romney campaign has to get turned around. This week I called it incompetent, but only because I was being polite. I really meant "rolling calamity."

A lot of people weighed in, in I suppose expected ways: "Glad you said this," "Mad you said this." But, some surprises. No one that I know of defended the campaign or argued "you're missing some of its quiet excellence." Instead there was broad agreement with the gist of the critique—from some in the midlevel of the campaign itself, from outside backers and from various party activists and officials. There was a perhaps pessimistic assumption that no one in Boston would be open to advice. A veteran of a previous Romney campaign who supports the governor and admires him—"This is a good man"—said the candidate's problem isn't overconfidence, it's a tin ear. That's hard to change, the veteran said, because tin-earness keeps you from detecting and remedying tin-earness.

Peggy Noonan's Blog Daily declarations from the Wall Street Journal columnist..There were wistful notes from the Republicans who'd helped run previous campaigns, most of whom could be characterized as serious, moderate conservatives, all of whom want to see Mr. Romney win because they believe, honestly, that the president has harmed the country financially and in terms of its position in the world. They're certain it will only get worse in the next four years, but they're in despair at the Romney campaign. Some, unbidden, brought up the name James A. Baker III, who ran Ronald Reagan's campaign in 1984 (megalandslide—those were the days) and George H.W. Bush's in 1988 (landslide.)

What they talked about, without using this phrase, is the Baker Way.

This was a man who could run a campaign. Twice in my life I've seen men so respected within their organizations that people couldn't call them by their first names. That would be Mr. Paley, the buccaneer and visionary who invented CBS, and Mr. Baker, who ran things that are by nature chaotic and messy—campaigns and White Houses—with wisdom, focus, efficiency, determination and discipline. And he did it while being attacked every day from left, right and center—and that was in the Reagan White House, never mind outside, which was a constant war zone.

Mr. Baker's central insight: The candidate can't run the show. He can't be the CEO of the campaign and be the candidate. The candidate is out there every day standing for things, fighting for a hearing, trying to get the American people to listen, agree and follow. That's where his energies go. On top of that, if he's serious, he has to put in place a guiding philosophy that somehow everyone on the plane picks up and internalizes. The candidate cannot oversee strategy, statements, speechwriting, ads. He shouldn't be debating what statistic to put on slide four of the Powerpoint presentation. He has to learn to trust others—many others.

Mr. Baker broke up power centers while at the same time establishing clear lines of authority—and responsibility. When you screwed up, he let you know in one quick hurry. But most of all he had judgment. He delegated, and only the gifted were welcome: Bob Teeter, Dick Darman, Roger Ailes, Marlin Fitzwater. He didn't like hacks, he didn't get their point, and he knew one when he saw one.

A campaign is a communal exercise. It isn't about individual entrepreneurs. It's people pitching in together, aiming their high talents at one single objective: victory.

Mitt Romney needs to get his head screwed on right in this area. Maybe advice could come from someone in politics who awes him. If that isn't Jim Baker then Mitt Romney's not awe-able, which is a different kind of problem.

"Maybe advice could come from someone in politics who awes him. If that isn't Jim Baker then Mitt Romney's not awe-able, which is a different kind of problem. "

Jim Baker is one of those guys who is ALWAYS the smartest guy in the room. He knows more about more than, well, anyone I can think of. He is also humble and kind, and approachable. In other words, this is a great article with sage advice. If Romney can get Baker, even if just as a "surrogate," Romney could back on track.

It would help if Romney had the instinct to connect his criticism of the dhimmi attitude of the State Dept in Cairo with the dhimmi attitude that drove the perp walking of the maker of the "film" with the dhimmi attitude that drove the "request" to Google to see if it should delete the "film" from youtube. Basic, basic stuff and it just isn't happening. Ugh.

History is replete with examples of strategic miscalculations in which an over-reach - usually born of contemptuous disdain for a foe - led to disaster for the aggressor. Think Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. Or Hitler's of the Soviet Union 131 years later. We may look back at September 11, 2012 as the kick-off date for such a tipping point in our time.

To be sure, the Muslim Brotherhood and its fellow Islamists - notably, al Qaeda franchises throughout the Middle East and beyond, other so-called "Salafists," Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia and the mullahs of Iran - were becoming increasingly aggressive towards us even before last week's mayhem in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, etc. Team Obama (notably in the person of its hapless and overexposed UN Ambassador, Susan Rice) and its running dogs in the elite media would nonetheless have us believe that the upset is the by-product of an amateurish short video that disparages Mohamed.

In fact, as most sentient beings have realized by now, that film is but the latest pretext for Islamists to demand our adherence to what they call shariah blasphemy laws. [Such laws are but a part of the larger, brutally repressive Islamic political, military and legal doctrine that prohibits any expression that offends, or otherwise is unhelpful to, their faith.]

Unfortunately, the Obama administration has repeatedly conveyed a willingness to accommodate - or at least tolerate - this threat to one of our most fundamental constitutional liberties: freedom of speech. That willingness is part of a pattern of submissive behavior that has encouraged the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies to believe that America is in retreat and that shariah's inevitable, divinely-directed and global triumph is at hand. Their response, predictably, is to redouble efforts to make us, in the Quran's words, "feel subdued."

In May 2009, President Obama insisted that Muslim Brotherhood representatives be in the audience for his first speech directed at the Islamic world. It was delivered at Cairo University and freighted with apologies for past U.S. policies and efforts to associate himself with the beliefs and priorities of his audience.Interestingly, Mr. Obama had already operationalized that policy approach two months before, by having the U.S. delegation to the UN Human Rights Council co-sponsor with Egypt a resolution drafted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The object of the exercise was to further the OIC's longstanding objective of forcing UN member nations to prohibit and criminalize expression that offends Islam. In July 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched a formal effort with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation dubbed the "Istanbul Process" to explore ways in which our First Amendment rights could accommodate shariah blasphemy laws. (Some of those playing an influential role in this exercise are discussed in a booklet about "The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration" I just published with the David Horowitz Freedom Center: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/frontpagemag-com/the-muslim-brotherhood-in-the-obama-administration/.)In December 2011, the Istanbul Process achieved an ominous milestone: The odious UN Human Rights Council adopted, with strong U.S. support, Resolution 16/18 committing member nations to adopt "measures to criminalize incitement to imminent violence based on religion or belief." Lest anyone think this a clever finesse, more or less in alignment with current U.S. law, the OIC's secretary general made clear that his organization did not view it as "the end of the road." And, indeed, developments of the past week - both here and abroad, official and non-governmental - suggest that Team Obama is prepared to go farther, too.Given such encouragement, it is not surprising that the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies would respond by demanding further accommodations to them and their shariah agenda. What is a surprise, though, is that they are acting out their ambitions at this juncture - not after November 6th, when President Obama will, in his words, "have more flexibility." It suggests that the Islamists have reached their tipping point, propelled to seek decisive domination by President Obama's perceived weakness, irresolution and submissiveness.

In the face of our enemies' overreaching aggressiveness, however, the American people now face a tipping point of their own. If they arrive at the only sensible conclusion - namely, that four more years of the Obama administration's malfeasance with respect to jihadism of both the violent and the stealthy, pre-violent kind - they may just respond by refusing to re-up a presidency that enables and emboldens our foes and undermines our liberties and friends. And should such a tipping point be realized, it will be one of truly epic historic proportions and prized by freedom-loving peoples forever.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Why The Polls Under State Romney VoteBy DICK MORRISPublished on DickMorris.com on September 21, 2012

Printer-Friendly VersionRepublicans are getting depressed under an avalanche of polling suggesting that an Obama victory is in the offing. They, in fact, suggest no such thing! Here's why:

1. All of the polling out there uses some variant of the 2008 election turnout as its model for weighting respondents and this overstates the Democratic vote by a huge margin.

In English, this means that when you do a poll you ask people if they are likely to vote. But any telephone survey always has too few blacks, Latinos, and young people and too many elderly in its sample. That's because some don't have landlines or are rarely at home or don't speak English well enough to be interviewed or don't have time to talk. Elderly are overstated because they tend to be home and to have time. So you need to increase the weight given to interviews with young people, blacks and Latinos and count those with seniors a bit less.

Normally, this task is not difficult. Over the years, the black, Latino, young, and elderly proportion of the electorate has been fairly constant from election to election, except for a gradual increase in the Hispanic vote. You just need to look back at the last election to weight your polling numbers for this one.

But 2008 was no ordinary election. Blacks, for example, usually cast only 11% of the vote, but, in 2008, they made up 14% of the vote. Latinos increased their share of the vote by 1.5% and college kids almost doubled their vote share. Almost all pollsters are using the 2008 turnout models in weighting their samples. Rasmussen, more accurately, uses a mixture of 2008 and 2004 turnouts in determining his sample. That's why his data usually is better for Romney.

But polling indicates a widespread lack of enthusiasm among Obama's core demographic support due to high unemployment, disappointment with his policies and performance, and the lack of novelty in voting for a black candidate now that he has already served as president.

If you adjust virtually any of the published polls to reflect the 2004 vote, not the 2008 vote, they show the race either tied or Romney ahead, a view much closer to reality.

2. Almost all of the published polls show Obama getting less than 50% of the vote and less than 50% job approval. A majority of the voters either support Romney or are undecided in almost every poll.

But the fact is that the undecided vote always goes against the incumbent. In 1980 (the last time an incumbent Democrat was beaten), for example, the Gallup Poll of October 27th had Carter ahead by 45-39. Their survey on November 2nd showed Reagan catching up and leading by three points. In the actual voting, the Republican won by nine. The undecided vote broke sharply -- and unanimously -- for the challenger.

An undecided voter has really decided not to back the incumbent. He just won't focus on the race until later in the game.

Add these two factors together and the polls that are out there are all misleading. Any professional pollster (those consultants hired by candidates not by media outlets) would publish two findings for each poll -- one using 2004 turnout modeling and the other using 2008 modeling. This would indicate just how dependent on an unusually high turnout of his base the Obama camp really is.

I supported Herman Cain from the beginning. I've known about and admired him for many years here in the Atlanta area. He was my number one choice, but sadly - the media attack machine took a serious toll on his wife - who has a heart condition - and he made the only honorable decision by bowing out of the race. I don't believe ANY of the sexual harassment accusations had any merit, having met the man, and knowing people personally who have known him for many years. I agree that he'd be a vastly superior candidate to Romney, but all that is water over the dam at this point. As Mark Levin (never a fan of Romney) said repeatedly during the primary season: "If Romney wins the nomination, we're going to have to fight like hell to drag him across the finish line, and then continue to fight like hell if he is elected to pull him to the right. The bottom line is - Obama MUST be defeated if this nation is to survive as founded. I'd vote for an orange juice can over Obama."

« Last Edit: September 21, 2012, 06:47:34 PM by objectivist1 »

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

The official, head-to-head debates begin next week, but Sunday’s “60 Minutes” appearances by President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) provided a contrast in the ideas offered on the nation’s entitlements and spending crisis.

For his part, the President punted on a serious question about the nation’s concern over spending—blaming everything on President George W. Bush. Instead of addressing the spending question, he waited for the next question about the national debt, which has increased more than 50 percent since he took office. Then came the familiar refrain of why he’s not responsible for Washington’s overspending or the country’s abysmal fiscal situation:When I came into office, I inherited the biggest deficit in our history. And over the last four years, the deficit has gone up, but 90 percent of that is as a consequence of two wars that weren’t paid for, as a consequence of tax cuts that weren’t paid for, a prescription drug plan that was not paid for, and then the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

These continued excuses ignore the massive increases since the President took office. According to Heritage expert Emily Goff: By fiscal year 2008, the deficit had reached $458.6 billion. The deficit was increasing as Obama came into office, mainly driven by the recession and the first wave of TARP bailouts. But his Administration’s massive stimulus bill sent spending into overdrive and led to a record $1.4 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2009. Deficits have stayed at more than $1 trillion each year since then.

America’s entitlement programs are the major driver of out-of-control spending. Without reform, they would push federal spending to nearly 36 percent of the economy within a generation. Debt held by the public would explode to nearly 200 percent. Serious structural reforms are inevitable—it is merely a question of how we change what we are doing.

In his “60 Minutes” interview, Obama glossed over Obamacare’s cuts to Medicare and the resulting costs for seniors.

Romney, when asked how he would change Social Security, first made clear there should be no changes to benefits for those in or near retirement.

But he went on:What I’d do with Social Security is say this: that again, people with higher incomes won’t get the same high growth rate in their benefits as people with lower incomes. People who rely on Social Security should see the same kind of growth rate they’ve had in the past. But higher income folks would receive a little less.

As Heritage expert Alison Fraser explains, Social Security is already income-adjusted today. This is called means testing. Benefits are capped for high-income earners, and the calculation of initial benefits a new retiree receives is based on his or her past income. Upper-income retirees pay a much higher tax than those with lower incomes. Romney proposes to extend this income adjusting so that upper-income retirees receive a bit less than they do now.

While many politicians claim that the only way to address entitlements is to raise taxes or cut benefits, expanding means testing is a serious and sound way to pursue reform.

These kinds of solutions can be found in Saving the American Dream, Heritage’s blueprint for solving our spending and debt crises. Saving the American Dream lays out solutions like slowly moving to a flat Social Security benefit that keeps seniors out of poverty, means testing Social Security so that very affluent seniors have a reduced benefit, and moving to a more robust means-tested premium support mechanism for Medicare that offers seniors choice and control over their health dollars and better health outcomes.

Without reforms, entitlement programs will push spending to untenable levels and put undue pressure on vital areas of government such as national defense. The Obama Administration’s comments about reform, like "now is not the time" for fixing Social Security and the need for a "balanced approach," have been proven hollow by its push for tax hikes on job creators. We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem, and the longer Washington wastes time, the harsher the changes will have to be.

This debate is vital. To save the American economy and sustain the safety net for those who need it, spending must be reined in and entitlement programs must be reformed.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

I have sympathies with the Libertarian Party, but that movement needs IMO to fight for market share within the Republican and Democratic parties in order to succeed.

There is no constitutional basis for a two party system in the first place; all parties have rights and opportunities to compete.

The advantage of a two party dominated reality is that the winner has to try to surpass 50% of the vote to win. In a split multi-party environment, a candidate can target a much smaller segment for victory. In other countries for example, coalitions are then formed in back room deals. That is not better IMO than our system.

Gary Johnson chose to debate and compete in the Republican primaries, then seeing virtually no support he went the 'third party' route http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70727.html. The general election does not need to included a consolation or losers bracket. If you can get on the ballot, fine. If you can get a news camera to film you, all the better, but we are not obligated to watch you.

It looks to me like the debate commission, operating under a freedom of association, offers a very open and objective standard for inclusion beyond the two largest current parties:

"...have achieved ballot access in a sufficient number of states to win a theoretical Electoral College majority in the general election; and have demonstrated a level of support of at least 15 percent of the national electorate..."

That standard could be tighter, it could require getting on the ballot in all 50 states, or looser, it could require polling support of 10% or 5%. Still none of these other candidates would qualify at this point. 15% is still less than half the support needed to win in a 3-way contest. If you make the standards too low and the stage too wide, the meaning and importance of the event is lost. We saw that in the early debates that DID include Gary Johnson.

When there has been a serious 3rd party challenge in the past, the candidate was included in the debates, see Ross Perot 1992. In a state example, the MN rule was that if a party won 15% in the previous election, they earn major party status in the next election. A previous independent candidate for Senate, Dean Barkley, made it possible for Jesse Ventura to stand on the podium while Hubert H Humphrey III and Norm Coleman were bickering and win election as an Independent Party Governor.

The fall debates are not designed for publicizing a large list of unknowns, the purpose is to put a final, public focus on the finalists who have already qualified as contenders. There is no legal requirement that any serious contender must participate as we are apparently seeing in the one party state of Calif with Sen. Stalin, I mean Feinstein. Add in too much dilution and the major candidates could easily opt out.

There is nothing stopping other parties from forming through freedom of association their own debates or other events sponsored by whatever organizations and media outlets that they can they arrange, just like Republicans and Democrats did.

Gary Johnson wants a level of viewership and attention that he has not earned.